1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing food waste, and more particularly to an apparatus for processing food waste capable of enhancing the processing performance for food waste relative to a conventional food waste processing apparatus by highly increasing contact area of between food waste and microorganisms due to complete pulverization of food waste, in which a housing and a conical-shaped screw having a cutter are disposed in a chamber for temporarily containing food waste and biochips in the apparatus for processing food waste, wherein vertical agitating rods for properly agitating food waste and biochips are disposed at an inner lower portion of the chamber.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Food waste discharged from a home or a shop certainly produce the river contamination and furthermore the soil contamination. Even when pollution is localized to a limited area or strata of a large body of water, it has not been possible or practical to eliminate food waste from water or soil in an environmentally polluted area because food waste have viscosity and had deeply penetrated into soil.
Due to such difficulty, numerous types of systems for processing food waste in advance have been developed. One type of food waste processing systems is used to process food waste by microorganisms treatment.
FIG. 1 shows an apparatus for processing food waste by using microorganisms according to the prior art.
Referring to FIG. 1, in the conventional apparatus for processing food waste, a cover is mounted to an upper portion of a main body 30 and a fermentation tank 32 is installed in the main body 30. Food waste and biochips for supporting the propagation and the activation of microorganisms are charged into the fermentation tank 32. An impeller blade 33 of a water mill type is installed at the center of the fermentation tank 32. The impeller blade 33 is rotated by receiving a driving power generated from a motor fixed to an inner lower surface of the main body 30 and thereby it can repeatedly agitate food waste and bio chips in the fermentation tank 32. A cutter 35 for cutting food waste of great bulk and length at a predetermined size is installed at an inner bottom surface of the fermentation tank 32.
Hereinafter, the operation of the apparatus for processing food waste according to the prior art as above will be briefly described.
In the conventional apparatus for processing food waste, food waste and bio chips for supporting the propagation and the activation of microorganisms are charged into the fermentation tank 32 and then an electric current is applied to the motor. Therefore, when the motor begins to be started to run the impeller blade 33, the impeller blade 33 may be simultaneously rotated in order to equally agitate food waste and biochips charged into the fermentation tank 32.
When food waste of great bulk and length at a predetermined size are rotated and agitated during rotary motion of the impeller blade 33, food waste may be wounded around the outer circumstance of the impeller blade 33 and thereby the impeller blade 33 cannot be rotated. At this time, the cutter 35 fixed to the lower portion of the fermentation tank 32 cuts food waste of great bulk and length at a predetermined size so that the impeller blade 33 can be rotated without disturbance.
However, in this conventional apparatus for processing food waste as described above, food waste and biochips are mixed by rotating the impeller blade 33 under the condition that the size of food waste charged into the fermentation tank 32 has not been changed. Accordingly, it takes a lot of time for completely processing food waste due to operation of a microscopic organism.
While the cutter 35 may cut food waste of great bulk and length at a short length in order to smoothly rotate the impeller blade 33 without disturbance, it has not been possible or practical to crush food waste at a small size. Since the microscopic organism is stick to the surface of food waste and then ferments food waste, it takes a lot of time for completely processing and dissolving food waste due to operation of a microscopic organism.
In addition, because food waste is completely dissolved and processed in the conventional apparatus for processing food waste for a long time, it has not been possible to certainly maintain microscopic organism""s existence within the fermentation tank 32 during performing a process for completely dissolving food waste.
Another problem associated with processing food waste by using the conventional apparatus is that a bad smell hangs in the air during fermentation processing of food waste.
In order to solve these problems, it is required to employ additional heating devices and deodorizing devices. Consequently, the total constitution of the apparatus for processing food waste becomes complicated and therefore it is required to have much money and a lot of time in order to maintain and repair the apparatus for processing food waste. In addition, the manufacturing cost of the apparatus for processing food waste is highly increased.
The present invention is contrived to solve the foregoing problems. It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for processing food waste capable of enhancing performance of processing food waste relative to a conventional food waste processing apparatus by highly increasing contact area of between food waste and microorganisms due to complete pulverization of food waste.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an apparatus for processing food waste by using microorganism, the apparatus comprising:
a main body including a table, a chamber fixed on an upper surface of the table, a gear part mounted to a lower surface of the table and a driving motor disposed below the gear part and mechanically connected with the gear part;
a conical-shaped screw being disposed in the main body, the conical-shaped screw including a loading plate, a supporting axle upwardly protruding from an upper portion of the loading plate, a screw thread protruding from an outer surface of the loading plate and a cutter vertically formed at one side of a lower portion of the loading plate; and
a hollow truncated cone-shaped housing for enclosing the conical-shaped screw being mounted onto the conical-shaped screw within the main body, the housing including pluralities of brackets disposed at outer sides of the housing, in which a rounded portion is formed at one end of the bracket and a conical-shaped guiding rail is formed at the other end of the bracket, respectively.
An inclined portion is formed at an inner circumferential lower surface of the chamber. A hollow agitating shaft upwardly protrudes from the center of the lower surface of the chamber and has pluralities of agitating rods extending radially outwardly from the agitating shaft. At this time, the agitating shaft is disposed in operative association with the gear part. A main shaft for rotating the agitating shaft in a reverse direction is inserted into the agitating shaft.
An engaging groove is formed at the center of an inner lower portion of the loading plate and thereby the upper end of the main shaft is inserted into the engaging groove of the conical-shaped screw. The housing is fixed to the main body by means of a locking member, which passes through the rounded portion of the bracket and is inserted into a wall of the chamber.
An inlet for introducing food waste into the housing and pluralities of outlets for exhausting a part of food waste toward the outside are formed through outer side surfaces divided by the guiding rail of the housing.
A fixing bush is disposed at the center of the upper portion of the housing. A through hole is formed through the center of the fixing bush. The supporting axle of the conical-shaped screw is inserted into the through hole.
As described above, in the apparatus for processing food waste according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a housing and a conical-shaped screw having a cutter are disposed in a chamber for temporarily containing food waste and biochips in the apparatus for processing food waste. Vertical agitating rods for properly agitating food waste and biochips are disposed at an inner lower portion of the chamber.
Due to this structure of the apparatus for processing food waste, it is possible to repeatedly agitate food waste by elevating and continuously rotating food waste due to rotation of the conical-shaped screw. Furthermore, it is possible to crush food waste at a small size.